


five paragraphs of emma swan in love (with regina mills, an inevitability)

by coalitiongirl_ficlets (coalitiongirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl_ficlets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t occur to her to be in love for a long time, and maybe that’s why it happens so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five paragraphs of emma swan in love (with regina mills, an inevitability)

It doesn’t occur to her to be in love for a long time, and maybe that’s why it happens so easily. Because she’s got all these walls that pop up the minute any guy who isn’t her dad or her son shows any interest in her, forcibly shoving them from her mind and heart before they’re anywhere close to either. She doesn’t think to protect herself from Regina until she’s looking at her one day and she  _falls_ , simple as that, years of caring too much about a woman she’d never worried about loving finally threading together into a completed tapestry she can identify for what it is.

* * *

 

And even then, it’s a slow revelation. A smile here, a helping hand there, and then one day she’s looking at Regina and thinking  _I would move worlds to make you happy_  and it’s more important than her own happiness, than any of her concerns and needs and she can’t breathe from how much she’s suddenly feeling. It’s terrifying but she’s too far gone already and Regina is smiling at her and she can’t run, can’t do anything but drink in that smile and sit in place with a dopey smile of her own. 

* * *

 

She wakes up every morning for a month in this state between bliss and panic, the reality of  _Regina Mills, caring too much about Regina Mills, being in love with Regina Mills_ her perpetual companion. It’s too much and it’s ridiculous but it’s also so much easier than she’d ever thought it would be and she can’t stop smiling when she thinks about  _it_ , being in love, being able to look at the volatile woman sitting across the diner and recognizing that a piece of you is now entrusted to her. It’s vulnerability and it’s freedom and it’s going to fucking destroy her, probably, but she’s can’t help thinking that it might be worth it.

* * *

 

There’s no need to say anything to Regina at first, either, and that’s the weirdest part of this whole thing, because she’d thought that reciprocity was the whole point of love, wasn’t it? But instead nothing changes- not the fighting or the smiling or the quiet understanding- and the only part that’s different is the part where Emma’s heart does funny twisty things whenever they do. And what had once been a way of saying  _I hate you_ and had grown to  _I respect you_ and  _I trust you_  and  _I need you_  is now  _I love you_ and Emma doesn’t even know they’re speaking the same language until she’s panting and gasping out Regina’s name and backed against the door of her parents’ apartment (and they’re home and Henry’s upstairs and it’s  _so_  inappropriate but it’s not like she’s capable of thinking right then) with Regina’s hand in her pants and her name a litany in her ears.

 

* * *

And then it’s all different and not different at all, because she’s exactly the same and Regina’s exactly the same except there’s something soft inside them, too, a little piece of damaged heart reserved for each other. And loving Regina is almost sacred, precious beyond anything she can explain, because it’s so  _rare_  and it’s so  _necessary_  and it means more to Regina than to those who’ve lived with love all along. And maybe it’s that way for her too, this love without expectation, without pedestal and title, because being loved by Regina is as vital as her heartbeat. She is loved, and it’s powerful and humbling and changes everything. But it’s loving Regina that leaves her breathless and overwhelmed and so much  _more_  than she’d been before (they manage being more together, as they do everything).

 


End file.
